


Come Away, Oh Human Child

by Batsymomma11



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abusive John Winchester, Alternate Universe--Fae, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, No Hunting, Triggers, faefolk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-05
Updated: 2020-02-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:14:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22576141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Batsymomma11/pseuds/Batsymomma11
Summary: “Where would you take me?” My voice comes out strangled above the breeze. My eyes burn so badly I can barely keep them open. “How would you help me?”“I could take you far, far away. To a place that you would never go to sleep hungry again. Never feel cold in your bed. Never wonder if the yelling will come into your bedroom where you hide. A place you have never seen or heard of. Very, very far away from this place.”
Relationships: pre-Castiel/Dean Winchester - Relationship
Comments: 3
Kudos: 57





	Come Away, Oh Human Child

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own Supernatural or its characters. I do own the story. 
> 
> The title and work are inspired by the poem Stolen Child by W.B. Yeats--an excellent read if you want a feel for the setting of the detailing in this fic. 
> 
> Thanks for reading and enjoy!

“I can take you from this place.”

“No, you can’t.”

“I can.”

I lift a hand to trace the feathery tops of the wheat and stare out over the expanse of gold. There are hundreds of them, so many they make an ocean and I the insignificant intruder amidst their bounty. I’ve lived in Kansas my whole life. I don’t know anything outside of these state lines. Nor, did I ever think I would want to.

“Where would you take me?” My voice comes out strangled above the breeze. My eyes burn so badly I can barely keep them open. “How would you help me?”

“I could take you far, far away. To a place that you would never go to sleep hungry again. Never feel cold in your bed. Never wonder if the yelling will come into your bedroom where you hide. A place you have never seen or heard of. Very, very far away from this place.”

“It sounds made up,” I hiss, finally turning my face to glare angrily at the creature who followed me from the wood. His eyes are angular and sharp, in strong opposition to the quality of his lilting voice. I’ve never seen a face like his. Or heard a voice like his.

“It is not.”

“You could be lying.”

“I could be,” he shifts on his feet, leaning into the breeze, his eyes closing as if to let the scent of the nearing harvest permeate his skin, “But I am not.”

“If I—if I went with you—” his eyes open and jump to my face. I swallow thickly as the burn at the backs of my eyes becomes almost unbearable. Wet heat spills over one eyelid and burns a trail down my cheek. His gaze follows the movement and I struggle to continue. He does not rush me. In fact, he seems as unhurried as he has from the start. Patiently waiting for me to submit to what he wants. “My brother, Sammy, he would have to come too. I can’t leave him here. And—and they would come looking for me.”

“No.”

“They would—”

“They would not care.”

I blink at him, stiffening as his words slice deeply, “They—they would care a little. Mom would. Maybe not Dad, but Mom—”

“No. I would make sure they did not remember you. Either of you. It would be as if you never existed in their world to begin with. You and Sammy would grow old spending your days at my side. With me. Forever protected. Forever loved. Forever safe.”

“Imprisoned,” I whisper softly, feeling gooseflesh prickle my arms and legs as I step back from him.

He frowns, his lips pressing into a thin line as he watches me back up. “No, Dean. Never that. I mean only to make you safe. I mean only to—protect you. Forever. What you do in my world, will be your choice. You will live out your days free. From child to man. Sammy too.”

“And where you live—”

He smiles softly at me, a dimple cutting deeply into one of his cheeks, “In Etheros.”

“Etheros,” I say the name carefully, trying it out on my tongue, “They are all just like you?” I gesture at his whole person, hoping to convey my meaning, to make him understand. His eyes flicker away from my face and back to the fields of wheat.

“Yes. They are all like me. Save a few.”

“Other children?”

“No. They are all grown now.”

“So, there are—humans there? Adult humans?”

He smiles back at me, amusement clear in his gaze, “A few. They are aging in our world, slower, but still steadily maturing.”

“What if I hate it?”

He lifts a brow at me, “Then I can return you.”

“Just like that?”

He nods delicately, his long black hair falling over one shoulder revealing one of those pointed ears I found so intriguing the first time we met. The first time he approached me in the woods and I ran screaming, terrified of him as he rose out of the depths of my favorite swimming hole. The ears seem—normal now. Natural even, on that unblemished and angular face. His eyes still unsettle me in their frightening direct shade of amethyst and turquoise. But I’m getting used to them.

“If I say I’m not ready—will you keep asking? Will you come back again?”

He blinks at me, head cocking as if to assess me clearer then shrugs a shoulder elegantly, “I came now merely to spare you more pain. I could hear you crying each night across the veil and I grew weary of it.”

“Oh.”

“I had hoped to bring you some relief.”

“But I—I might need more time. To say goodbye. To be—to be ready.”

“Then I will come back tomorrow.”

“What if I need longer than that?”

He inhales softly, head tipping up to the sky with a look of profound impatience crossing his brows, “Then I will keep coming back, Dean. Until you say yes. Until I can bring you away from this place.”

My eyes burn again, my throat threatening to close in on itself. “Why? Why me?”

He levels me with a dark, solemn look, “Because you asked me to.”

“I did?”

“Yes. You’ve begged for help for the last five hundred and sixty-three nights. I should have come sooner.”

“That was—” I scrub at the tears in my eyes that blur his image, “those were prayers. I asked God for help.”

“God…the Fae…what difference does it make? I heard you and I came. I am answering your prayers,” he laughs, and the sound makes my chest ache and my feet move unbidden a few steps closer just to get nearer. The sound of his laugh is infectious and heady. “Perhaps God sent me, little one.”

I shake my head, “I don’t know. This is—this is crazy.”

“It is merely unknown.”

“Crazy. I should—I should tell Mom and she can get me checked out at the hospital or—”

“If you tell anyone of the Fae, I’ll be forced never to return. You will be signing your own permanent sentence in this world. No amount of prayers will bring me back, Dean.”

“I—”

“I will come back tomorrow.”

“No.”

He lifts a brow. “The next day then?”

I nod slowly, unsure if I will be any more sure than I am now—which is not at all. I hope I will be. I pray I will be. When he walks away, I realize, yet again, I forgot to ask him his name.

*** 

Castiel comes back for three years.

Every night in the summer, he finds me in the woods and stays nearby as I lose myself in the trees and try to stay away from home. But I don’t go with him.

I can’t.

Not long after his first appearance, Mom found out she had cancer. And I couldn’t leave. I can’t leave. Not now. Maybe not ever.

Castiel keeps coming back and I pretend that I’m not slowly going mad. I pretend he is just my friend. My only friend. And that my life isn’t as bad as he says it is. At night, I sleep in the barn or in the truck, doing my best to avoid getting the business end of Dad’s fists when he drinks his nightly Scotch. Mom needs me during the day. I had to drop out of school to stay home and keep the farm afloat. And Sammy—he needs me too. They both do.

I can’t go. Not now.

I still ache when I feel Castiel move to stand at my side as the sun dips behind the horizon and the stars spread like a patchwork quilt above our heads.

“You pray less.”

I snort, “Why bother? You’re the only one listening.”

Castiel sits beside me on the grass and I shift to give him room. I can still feel the heat coming from his skin and can smell the scent of Etheros that clings to his clothes. It smells like honeysuckle and sweet pea. Like freedom.

“Your birthday is Saturday.” 

“Yes.”

“Eighteen human years is the age of majority. It is the age of adulthood.”

“And?”

He shifts, his fingers brushing mine in the damp grass and I feel my eyes slide closed at the contact. It’s so rare to be touched with kindness these days I ache to draw nearer and simply press into a warm side with no needs or demands to be had from me. Even Sammy can’t give me that. Not when he is always looking to me for help and comfort.

“And I am still here, Dean. I am still waiting.”

“You know about Mom.”

“She will leave this world soon.”

I stiffen, every muscle in my body going hard. “How the fuck do you know that?”

“She grows weary. It is not hard to surmise that her time is close. She is the last tether keeping you here.”

“Fuck you, Castiel.”

He inhales and the sound of it is angry. Harsh in the quiet blend of crickets and moonbeams. “There will be nothing left here for you.”

“Sammy—”

“Can come too. I want him safe as much as I want you safe. I’ve said as much these last three years. And yet, here we sit, near the same fields where it all began,” he pauses, startling me when he wraps elegant fingers around my chin and pulls me to face him, “Despite the darkness, my vision is impeccable. I can see where he hit you.”

I freeze, a deer in the headlights, my breath backing up in my lungs. “It’s nothing new.”

“It will stop. When you come with me.”

“I can’t—”

“You can. Soon. I will still wait. I will still—”

“Stop it. Just. Fucking, stop it.”

It’s been a year, maybe longer since the last time I cried but I feel perilously close to doing so now. I lurch roughly to my feet and struggle to keep the tide of emotion at bay. It’s an effort but manageable. Castiel rises with me and I can feel the heat and concern in his gaze pressing in on me, stifling me.

“It’s been three years. Don’t you think I would have if I thought—if I thought I should?”

He says nothing. He remains silent.

I turn for the house and leave Castiel standing in the fields and press a fist to my chest when I reach the porch and see he’s already disappeared back into the woods. There is a part of me that wants him to never come back. The other—prays I haven’t sent the only person who’s ever really cared about me away for good.

*** 

Mom dies like Castiel said she would.

On a Sunday, just after church. We get home from service with Sammy carrying a handful of wildflowers he picked off the side of the dirt state road to our house for Mom.

She went in her sleep. Or at least, that’s what it looks like.

Dad leaves almost as soon as we find her. I call the coroner to come and get her. Sammy cries loud and wet into my shoulder and I feel—nothing. I still feel nothing hours later when Dad still isn’t home and Sammy is asleep and the house is empty and dark. I still feel nothing when I’m sitting at the kitchen table, staring at Sammy’s wildflowers we put in a vase at the center of the table and I’ve got a bottle of Dad’s scotch in my hand. I’ve never had any before. I never really wanted to.

But I feel like it now. I figure it can’t hurt anything.

I open the top, tip back the bottle and gag at the strong taste of acetone on my tongue. It burns so badly I can hardly get the mouthful to go down.

That’s when I break. I break silently. Shoulders shaking, breath sawing out of my lungs with that godawful scotch still in the back of my throat. I weep into the scuffed up kitchen table we’ve had since I was just a little kid and I fall asleep with my cheek pressed to the cold wood.

Hours later, when Dad comes slamming into the house, it startles me awake and I stare dumbly at Dad as he finds me with his bottle of scotch. It’s still open on the table. Barely touched.

But—touched.

His fist connects so quickly with my jaw, there isn’t time to think. There isn’t time to breathe. I take the hit hard and fall over backward in my chair, the back of my head hitting the corner of the doorjamb and I feel hot white heat blister open on my scalp at the same time the pain registers on my face.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Dean?”

“I—I don’t—”

“Get up.”

I try to obey. Autopilot keeping me from collapsing back to the floor from sheer exhaustion, but I can’t keep my feet under me when he grabs me by the collar and starts screaming into my face.

“Dad—Dad—Sammy is sleeping.”

“I don’t give a fuck what your brother is doing! Shut that smartass mouth for once in your goddamn life!”

My mouth snaps closed and I don’t know when I started crying again but I am now and the sobs are ugly and loud as the sound of my heart crashing in my ears. Dad hits harder than he usually does. His knuckles feel meaner, his words—like knives and I take it with little grace or decorum.

I don’t even notice when Sammy comes barreling into the kitchen at first. Not until he hits Dad over the head with a frying pan and all at once the kitchen finally goes quiet. Then I’m staring up at Sammy through a haze of crimson and I realize I’m covered in blood and shaking like a leaf.

“Dean,” Sammy is at my side, grabbing hard at my arm, “Get up, Dean. We need to go. You need a hospital.”

“I need—” my thoughts scatter a little as the room tips, “I need Castiel.”

Sammy stops, blinking down at me, his eyes wild and frightened, “What? Who’s that?”

“Friend,” I say dumbly, my mouth full of blood, “best friend.”

“You need a hospital,” Sammy says again, his determination making his brows low and angry, “It’s bad Dean. Dad got you bad this time.”

“Castiel,” I say again, more firmly.

“We can call him on the way.”

“No, I just—”

“I’m here, Dean.”

I’m not sure which of us is more surprised, me or Sammy. Sammy jumps back from the kitchen doorway then darts over to the knife block on the counter to brandish a knife at our intruder. I stare stupidly up at Castiel, unchanged as ever and feel those tears come back with a vengeance from before.

“Cas—you—you came.”

“I said I would.”

“I didn’t think—”

“You were angry. It’s fine, Dean. I’m here now.”

“Dean?”

I blink sluggishly over to Sammy, “This is…Castiel.”

“Castiel?”

“My friend.”

Castiel kneels at my side and brushes his knuckles softly over one cheek, his eyes darkening to soot as they take in the damage, “Best friend. Remember?”

“Yeah,” I nod weakly, “Whatever.”

“What the fuck is going on, Dean?”

“Can you take us?”

Sammy drops the knife and darts over to my side, placing an arm over my chest as if to protect me from Cas. It would be laughable if he knew even half of what the Fae were capable of. If he knew who Castiel was or even what he was.

“He’s not thinking clearly and you n—” he stops, his eyes going wide when he really seems to register how different Castiel looks, “You need to—to leave.”

“Can you take us?”

Castiel glances at Dad on the floor, back to me, then reaches for one of my hands loosely fisted on the floor. “Be sure, Dean. You’ve been saying no for a long time.”

“She’s gone.”

“I know.”

“She—” I choke on a sob, closing my eyes as the tears roll down my cheeks, “she’s gone. I’m sure, Castiel. Take us with you.”

“Both of you?”

“Yes.”

“Dean, what are you talking about? What th—”

“You’ll be safe with me, Sammy,” Castiel pats his shoulder, wraps his hand around Sammy’s then dips to brush his cheek against mine. “Let’s go home, Dean.”


End file.
